


The Boss 3

by LanceTheFuckerTucker



Series: The Boss [3]
Category: Bucky Barnes - Fandom, The Avengers
Genre: 70's Bucky Barnes AU, 70's Bucky strip club AU, Guns, Multi, Murder, the avengers are mob lords in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-28
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-20 11:59:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9490088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LanceTheFuckerTucker/pseuds/LanceTheFuckerTucker
Summary: It's your first shift at Legs. The rumours you've heard about Bucky Barnes are true. But you also realise very quickly that you've become involved in a situation you can't walk away from anymore. You know too much.





	

“Stark’s planning something” Barton announced to the group of men, assembled in Bucky’s office. 

Stevie sat forward in his chair, clasping his hands together. “Someone has something on us… that’s news,” he quipped.

Bucky was unconcerned, barely looking up from his newspaper. He knew this was coming. His past always had a habit of catching up on him. He had a plan for exactly this, and you were an integral part of it. Even if you didn’t know it yet.

Sam twirled his moustache and eyed Bucky, expecting a response, “Boss doesn’t seem too concerned.”

Finally, Bucky closed the newspaper, slapping it down on his desk. He sighed and studied each of his friends in turn. “I’m not. But I know someone’s a fuckin’ snitch here. Just gotta weed ‘em out.”

Barton raised his hands, “you know we wouldn’t…”

“It’s the new girl, what’s her name again?” Sam suggested.

“Sweetie, Nat calls her Sweetie,” Stevie confirmed.

Barton shook his head and laughed, “isn’t she a little cute for mob wars?”

“I know who it is,” Bucky said coldly, cutting the men off, “but I’m playing the long game.”

 

For the remainder of the week, you were distracted, to say the least. If you weren’t consumed by your nerves about your first shift at Legs, you were thinking about how you were going to wangle a repeat performance of Wednesday’s antics with your new boss, completely forgetting how uncomfortable the whole thing was at the time.

It began to sink in that you weren’t the best dancer in the world as you stood in front of the mirror in Angie’s bedroom, attempting to pin down your most fluid and seductive moves. Instead, they all manifested themselves as disjointed jerking motions that were less sexy and more stilted. Saturday was going to be a disaster. It was a recurring thought in everything you did.

And then it was Saturday. And you were back in Angie’s room, in front of the mirror. Being interrogated once more about Bucky’s cock, where it went, if he likes you… The list was endless.

Angie had her hair in rollers, as she did most Saturdays. It took her all day to get ready for a night of dancing. She was still in her dressing gown, propping herself up on her elbows as she lay on her bed. “Was he really that big?” she asked you for the hundredth time, with eyes as wide as the first.

For someone who was about to spend their night stripping and giving lap dances to people for money, being so open about this kind of thing still made you cringe on the inside. You always maintained that you weren’t a prude, but the fact of the matter was that you were. 

You picked at the skin around your fingernails. You sure loved to avoid the subject. “Yeah, he was,” you admitted with a coy smile hoping she would stop after this juicy tidbit.

She didn’t.

“How much could you take?” Angie quizzed.

You let out a laugh, looking away from your best friend. “Most of it.”

“C’mon, I need the gory details!” she pressed, bouncing up onto her knees in front of you.

Your eyes met the clock on the nightstand beside you, it was three in the afternoon. It was the perfect excuse to get out of talking about your disastrous first foray into sucking cock. And the perfect excuse to slip into some of your new work clothes. “I gotta get ready, Ange!” you grinned, batting her with a pillow for good measure.

You knew you would be spending much of the night wearing next to nothing but first impressions counted in this line of work. You knew you would be a bundle of nerves arriving a Legs later. The red latex number would have to wait until you were more experienced in whipping off your clothes between private dances and circling the bar area. You slipped into a sheer black thong, a leather mini skirt and a black crop top that tied in the front, showing off just the right amount of cleavage. 

A pair of gold, shimmering sandals added a good few inches on to your height, but they also heightened the nervous quiver in your legs as you left Angie’s.

And that was without a drink.

Legs had a liberal rule of thumb when it came to drinking on the job. Which was just as well as you made your way down the increasingly familiar alleyway, unable to curtail the trembling in your hands. The rule was that you could drink as long as you weren’t wasted, according to Nat. 

Deciding to take full advantage of this, you hung out in the bar area for a while. It was early evening and the club was sparsely populated by sharply dressed patrons and your colleagues who had to work overtime to convince the revellers to buy a dance.

You heaved yourself up onto one of Legs’ red velvet stools an hour before your shift started and ordered a whisky. 

It was here that you met Luis - bartender extraordinaire. What he lacked in height, he made up for in charisma. He was also the club’s eyes and ears. It was through him you realised just what you were letting yourself in for, and he was all too happy to oblige your thirst for information.

“So there’s this mob lord, Tony Stark, right?” he began, leaning excitedly over the bar towards you, ignoring the customers waiting to order. 

“He’s the son of Howard Stark, you know the mayor who got assassinated a couple years ago? Well he wants to buy up all the strip clubs this side of the city, continuing his father’s work. Man, Stark senior was so corrupt. Every week he sends his boys here, it’s all super hush-hush, and every week there’s always some drama. Sometimes it’s a huge gunfight sometimes they just beat up the girls. The boss hates it when it happens to the girls. He can’t stand it. That’s why all the guys carry guns here, but anyways, Bucky’s convinced there’s a mole on the inside, spying on us, giving Stark all this information. So he says to me, ‘Luis, you can read people like a book, man’, so now, I’m kind of helping protect the boss. How cool is that?” 

When his monologue reached its end, Luis tweaked up his collar and bit his lip proudly, paying no attention to the alarm that had spread its way across your face. 

“Can I get another whisky?” you asked blankly, in dire need after that revelation.

“Hey, sweetie!” the familiar voice moved with the hand that trailed over the small of your back. It was Nat. 

“Hey,” you said, trying desperately to mirror her enthusiasm, “can we talk in private?”

“Sure!” Nat said, furrowing her brow, “Is something wrong? Are you nervous?”

You grabbed your whisky from the bar and headed over to an empty booth. 

“What’s up, sweetie?” Nat cooed.

You sighed, “Luis told me about Stark.”

Nat looked even more concerned, “What about Stark?”

“His attacks on the club, Nat,” you pressed.

Nat paused, for fear of giving too much away.

“Don’t worry about it, we’ll protect you. I’m sure if you talked to Bucky, he’d give you a crash course in self defence too,” she reassured. “I think tonight, just to get your confidence up, you should circle around here and then when you’re more confident with being up in front of everyone, you can get your ass up there,” she explained, cocking her head towards the cluster of podiums at the front of the vast room.

The girls up there were the picture of confidence, captivating the groups of customers congregated below them. Singles were pooled generously around their feet - for the time of day - and smiles were plastered on their faces. There was no way in hell you were ready for that.

You nodded in agreement, downing your drink. “Ok, I’m gonna put my stuff in the back and get out of these clothes. I’ll meet you out here in ten minutes,” you sighed, trying to psyche yourself up for the night ahead. 

You made your way down the dark corridor to steal a few moments alone. 

No one saw Bucky sitting alone in the furthest corner of the room. But he surveyed everything that happened in your absence. 

He saw Nat saunter over to someone she obviously knew. He saw the knowing looks and the hushed conversation. 

Bucky didn’t intervene but he took everything in. Remaining vigilant, tucked away from view, biding his time. 

The dark corridor where the private rooms, offices and dressing rooms were seemed much longer now as you walked back towards the half-empty bar.

When you strutted back into the lounge a pang of fear seared its way through you. In just your underwear and your heels, you couldn’t help but feel like every eye in the room was trained on you, even though they weren’t. 

Whether it was about Luis’ revelation or what you were about to do for money, you weren’t sure, but you felt like the cord had been cut. Your body was a vehicle and you were simply a passenger in it. 

You scanned the hazy room for Nat. 

“Over here, sweetie!” she called, waving you over to a booth occupied by a middle-aged man in a cheap polyester suit. 

You made your way over to the pair and sat down next to Nat. 

“This is Stephen,” Nat announced with a wicked look in her eye, “he saw you at the bar and had to be your first. He’s a regular here. A couple of songs should do it,”

You didn’t know how to handle this initial interest, so you awkwardly waved at Stephen whose eyes were lazily drifting over your body. He was silent.

Looking pleased with herself, Nat nodded, stood up to leave. “I’ll keep an eye on you,” she reassured, placing a hand on your shoulder. 

You rose to your feet in front of Stephen, remembering what Nat told you on Wednesday. It was your call, but clients couldn’t touch you in any way you deemed inappropriate.

Of course, it offered you little comfort as you awkwardly began to dance to Brown Sugar by The Rolling Stones, feeling Stephen’s steely gaze burning into your skin. He threw a ten dollar bill onto the the table then lounged back, seemingly admiring you.

He beckoned for you to come closer.

You duly complied, backing yourself up between Stephen’s legs as he ran a calloused hand up the back of your thigh. You weren’t expecting to enjoy it but you did, moving your hips against his grasp in time to the music. Perhaps it was from receiving this kind of attention, perhaps it was more to do with the fact that your parents would kill you if they knew how you were making your money now. But you loved it.

Gaining confidence, you finally settled on his lap. You relished the feeling of his fingers pressing into your hips.

That was when he grabbed your hair, knocking the air from your lungs. This was what Nat had warned you about on Wednesday. When you tried to squirm away from him, he wrapped a strong arm around your waist.

His voice was like an ice cold blade, cutting through the heat in the room. It was an even, unnerving hiss: “I’m gonna lead you outside and you’re gonna keep quiet, do you understand?”

Attempting to muster some small measure of defiance you questioned him, “why the fuck should I?” You began to wrangle against his grip again.

“Because that’s a gun in my pants and I’m not gonna lose any sleep over putting a bullet in you.”

You were trapped in all of your worst nightmares rolled into one as Stephen forced you towards the back of the room. Your eyes darted towards everyone you passed on your way out but no one looked back. They were having too much of a good time for that. 

Less than five minutes on the job and you were about to die. You were sure of it. What would they tell your parents when they found your naked body in a filthy alleyway? 

You practically fell out of the fire escape.

As instantly as the chill in the darkness caressed your skin, Stephen engulfed you. You were paralysed as the horror began to play out. Your mouth was dry and your senses were completely dulled, incapable of comprehending anything beyond what was going on inside your own mind. You were just there to watch. He was all over you.

And then he wasn’t. 

The velocity moved him a foot away from you and sent him to the ground. He didn’t move, even though his eyes were still open. Your flesh was spattered crimson.

The footsteps came from the fire escape. From the shadow of the building next door emerged Bucky with a pistol loosely hanging from his grip. 

Unable to cry, you cowered in on yourself. Just minutes prior, you thought your own death was imminent and then you saw someone else’s. All the rumours about Bucky Barnes seemed to be true now. You found out he could take a life without a second thought. He was totally unaffected.

Wordlessly, Bucky shrugged off his heavy corduroy jacket and carefully draped it around your shoulders. It was much too big for you. But you didn’t feel so exposed anymore. You wished you could thank him, but all you could do was apologise. 

This drama was so monumental to you, but it was just an average day at the club to him.

Bucky gave his best efforts to comfort you once your legs had regained their function and got you away from the scene of the crime. You nestled yourself into the plush chair across from Bucky’s desk, still wearing his jacket and nursing another whisky in your unsteady grasp. The room was quiet, but it was as if Bucky’s very presence absorbed the terror that coursed through you. 

Of course the questions that built up in your brain eventually broke the levy. “Nat told me Stephen was a regular,” you said quietly. 

“You know about the Stark thing?” Bucky asked, leaning back in his chair. 

You weren’t even sure if you were supposed to know. But you knew what Bucky was capable of now, so it wouldn’t have served you well to lie. You nodded. 

“Only a handful of people know what I’m about to tell you. When I do tell you, there’s no going back from it, kiddo, you understand?” Bucky explained seriously. 

Your voice shook, “Ok.”

“That guy tonight is a regular, he works for Stark. He’s been casing this place for months. Things have been happening recently and it’s all building towards something terrible. There’s secrets on both sides, but I suspect Stark might be after me, but no one’s gonna come for me directly.”

“Luis told me about Stark wanting to buy up all the clubs in the city,” you told him, thinking you were on the same page.

You were wrong. What Bucky was getting at was much more sinister than that.

Bucky nodded, raising his eyebrows, “he does, but it goes way deeper than that.”

“How so?” you asked.

“I can’t tell you that right now, but you need to promise me something,” he said with a pleading look on his face.

You nodded again, dreading what was to come.

“Don’t trust anyone at Legs, keep your guard up, kiddo, but don’t let on. Everyone has to trust you for this to work,” he warned, “I’ll protect you as much as I can but it’s gonna get ugly from here on out.”

You knew this was too good to be true. And now you were trapped. You knew too much now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, folks! Any and all feedback greatly appreciated!


End file.
